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EXISTENCE, MEANING, AND REALITY 



A. W. MOOKE 







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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

FOUHDED BY JOHN D. EOCKEFELLER 

The Decennial Publications 



EXISTENCE, MEANING, AND REALITY IN LOCKE'S ESSAY 
AND IN PRESENT EPISTEMOLOGY 



A. W. MOOKE 

PE0FB3S0B OP PHILOSOPHY 



ikl' 



PRINTED FROM VOLUME III 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

1903 



<ir^'>- 



MAR' 1 1903 

- ■'- **■ XXo. No. 

HI 



CLASS CC XXo. No. 



Copyright 1903 
BY THE UNIVEESITY OF CHICAGO 



PRINTED APRIL 1, 1903 



LC Control Number 



tmp96 025779 



EXISTENCE, MEANING, AND REALITY IN LOCKE'S ESSAY 
AND IN PRESENT EPISTEMOLOGY ^ 

A. W. Moo BE 

To MANY, anything more than a passing reference to Locke, these days, will 
appear to be an anachronism. What profit can there be in threshing over straw as old 
and thoroughly flailed as Locke's theory of knowledge? Why return from the out- 
posts of the epistemological battle to an ancient, deserted, and almost forgotten camp ? 
Those who feel perfectly secure in the present position, who feel that all points in the 
rear and on the flanks of the advance thus far have been left well fortified, will answer : 
"Why?" But there are some, and their number is increasing, who do not share this 
sense of security and who feel that the difl&culty is not one of momentary detail merely, 
but one involving the entire plan and method of the movement beginning in Locke. 
To these a review of the problem in the elementary and primitive form in which Locke 
presents it, and a reconsideration of the "common-sense" solution he ofPers, may not 
seem to be a case of misdirected effort. 

Moreover, it may appear to some that the indulgent attitude, which it is the 
fashion to take toward Locke's epistemology, often has less warrant than is assumed. 
Locke's pioneer services are of course duly recognized, but his methods and results 
have long been regarded as having only an historical interest. It has long since been 
agreed that, instead of finding a path through the epistemological ^forest primeval," 
he completely lost his way. The first "blaze" believed to have been made through 
that wilderness has, for over a century, borne the name of Kant. That "blaze" has 
become a great highway, splendidly equipped, and traveled by an innumerable com- 
pany seeking the realm of truth and reality believed to lie at the terminus. But after 
more than a century's journeyings, with the promised land still beyond the horizon, 
some are beginning to wonder whether Kant, after all, really did get through. The 
highway, broad, magnificent, and thronged as it is, still runs through the wilderness 
of "appearance." And this doubt is not abated when it is seen that the highway is 

1 The standpoint from which this paper is written is That two movements so similar in spirit should have been 
the outgrowth of work dqne a few years ago in Professor developing, independently of each other, in centers four 
Dewey's seminar in logic — a seminar remarkable for its thousand miles apart, is interesting and significant. The 
development of critical and reconstructive principles. extent of the agreement of this paper with Me. Sciiillkr's 
Since this paper was written the collection of Oxford es- essay on "Axioms, etc.," and his paper on " Useless Knowl- 
says edited by Mr. Sturt under the title Personal Idealism, edge " in Mind, N. S., Vol. XI,No. 42, offers suggestions for 
has come to hand. So marked is the accord of the gen- footnote references on almost every page. But there being, 
eral principles of this paper with much of the doctrine for the most part, no particular reason for making these 
of this volume — especially with Me. Schillee's essay on references at one place rather than another I have decided 
"Axioms as Postulates" and with some parts of Mr. to combine most of these possible citations in this one gen- 
Stout's essay on " Error "— that one might easily infer that eral statement. 
they were written within the same "sphere of influence." 



Existence, Meaning, and Reality 



often crossed and sometimes paralleled no little distance by Locke's old trail. To 
point out some of these crossings and parallels, and to suggest a few characteristics of 
what appears to some as a possible way — not to reality, but a way o/ reality — is the 
aim of this paper. 

Dropping the venerable and overburdened figure, and passing at once to the tech- 
nical discussion of the theme, we find that, in terms of present-day logic and episte- 
mology, the problem which Locke faces in Book IV of the Essay is that of the relation 
of existence, meaning, and reality to each other. Locke begins by attempting to 
identify reality with meaning. Failing in this, he tries to equate it with existence, 
and in the end attempts to divide the realm of reality between meaning and existence, 
leaving each, however, disputing the claims of the other. 

Locke's first definition of knowledge is as follows: "Since the mind in all its 
thoughts and reasonings hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, .... 
knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection and 
agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas." * It may be said, and truly, that Locke's 
ideas here are not meanings as modern logic understands meaning, but that they are exist- 
ences — psychical things. But it is precisely in the attempt to cut off these meanings 
from existence that they become psychical existences. To be sure, present logic tells us 
that knowledge involves "the loosing of meaning from existence," the severance of the 
"what" from the "that." But it tells us also that, at the same time, it involves "the 
reference of meaning to existence." But if the meanings — the "whats" — are taken as 
entirely loosed, so loosed that they become lost, from their existences, then they become, 
what they are here for Locke, a collection of psychical things. Thus does abstract 
idealism become a sort of psychical materialism. 

The difficulty inherent in the attempt to thus state knowledge in terms of these 
psychical existences comes out at once in Locke's further account of "agreement and 
disagreement." This is contained in his statement of the four "kinds" of agreement 
and disagreement, to-wit: (1) identity or diversity; (2) relation; (3) coexistence or 
non-coexistence of ideas in the same subject ; (4) agreement or disagreement of ideas 
with real existence.' The second "kind," Locke says, is really a general form of all 
the others, and is therefore not co-ordinate with ^them. In the fourth kind we 
recognize Locke's second conception of knowledge as the reference of ideas to 
reality as existence, and it is not to be considered, therefore, in the discussion of 
this first statement of knowledge as consisting in the reference of ideas to each other. 
The third kind of agreement and disagreement, as will be seen, is a transition state- 
ment which includes within it both the first and second definitions of knowledge 
and serves to break the abruptness of the transition. We have left, then, identity 
and diversity as the criterion of agreement and disagreement, in this first definition 
of knowledge. 

ajSssay, Book IV, chap. 1, sec. 1. 3 ibid., sec. 3. 

30 



A. W. Moore 



Locke's illustration is as follows: 

When we know that white is not black, what do we else but perceive that these two ideas do 
not agree? When we possess ourselves with the utmost security of the demonstration, that three 
angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, what do we more but perceive that equality to two 
right ones, does necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from the three angles of a triangle? * 

Here Locke apparently makes agreement and disagreement mean mere identity 
and difference. Black and white disagree because one is not the other. But the tri- 
angle proposition, given as an illustration of agreement, must possess this kind of 
disagreement. The ideas in "agreement" must yet be different ideas. On the other 
hand, in disagreement there must be a common basis; there must be a disagreement 
about something — color, size, etc. Thus agreement and disagreement each involves 
both identity and diversity, and the latter cannot, therefore, serve to differentiate them. 
Here Locke has come upon the old problem of unity in difference, of the one and the 
many, which so puzzled the Greeks and which was the crucial question for his con- 
temporary, Spinoza. In a world of givens, whether psychical or physical, meanings 
or existences, there appears no way of reconciling the demands of unity and difference, 
nor of finding a basis for agreement and disagreement. Each given is simply there. 
White is white, black is black ; there is an end of it. There is no basis or meaning 
for either harmony or opposition. As content, a unity of givens appears impossible. 
As factors, in a process, working to some end, there could be a unity of function. 
In a world of givens the problem of unity is insoluble. ° 

Locke's tacit recognition of these difficulties is found in his confession, farther 
on, that agreement and disagreement of this sort, except in the case of certain general 
mathematical and moral propositions, yields only "trifling" knowledge. In knowl- 
edge "which has most to do with the affairs of life," knowledge of substances, this 
definition of agreement and disagreement will not apply. 

Gold is malleable, is true and certain; but there is here nothing affirmed of gold but that 
that soimd stands for an idea in which malleability is contained and such a sort of truth and 
certainty as this it is to say a centaiur is fovufooted.* 

And again: 

It will be altogether as true a proposition to say all centaurs are animals, as that all men 
are animals; and the certainty of one as great as the other. For in both propositions the words 
are put together according to the agreement of the ideas in our minds; and the agreement of 
the idea of animal with that of centaur is as clear and visible to the mind, as the agreement of 
the idea of animal with that of man; and so these two propositions are equally true, equally 
certain. But of what use is all such truth to us? ' 

The attempt to state knowledge in terms of a lot of given meanings has, then, 
yielded little worthy the name of knowledge. It is Kant's system of concepts, empty 
without percepts, out of which can come only "analytic," " trifling" propositions. 

«Z6td., sec. 2. 6 Essay, Book IV, chap. 6, sec. 9. 

sTbe difiScuIty is, of course, just as acute on the side t Ibid., chap. 5, seo. 7. 

of the difEerences. 

31 



Existence, Meaning, and Keality 



And Locke's problem, too, at this point, is "the possibility of synthetic propositions;" 
that is, the possibility of finding "real" existences for these divorced meanings. In 
other words, it is the problem of converting his world of psychical existences into true 
meanings, by finding something for them to mean. 

This is the point at which Locke, like Spinoza,* simply shakes the hat, and presto! 
— there is the "real world." locke tries to lessen the abruptness of this transition to 
reality by two or three devices. First, as we have seen, this second definition of 
knowledge is given as the fourth "sort of agreement and disagreement." "The fourth 
and last sort of agreement and di/' agreement is that of actual and real existence, 
agreeing to any idea."^ Then he hc.s stated at the outset of the Essay that he will 
use idea as meaning "either image in the mind or quality in the object." Finally he 
introduces a statement of agreement and disagreement, which he gives as the third 
"kind" of agreement and disagreement, and which forms a transition from the first to 
the second general conception of knowledge. This transition statement, indeed, 
contains one of the best examples of Locke's confessed equivocation in the use of 
idea and thing. 

The third sort of agreement and disagreement to be foimd in our ideas, which the percep- 
tion of the mind is employed about, is coexistence or non-coexistence in the same subject, and 
this belongs particularly to substances. Thus, when we pronounce concerning gold that it is 
fixed, our knowledge of this truth amoimts to no more but this, that fixedness or a power to 
remain in the fire unconsumed, is an idea that always accompanies and is joined with that par- 
ticular sort of yellowness, weight, fusibility, malleableness, and solubility in aqua regia, which 
make ovir complex idea signified by the word gold.'" 

In the first part of this statement the coexistence is "in the same subject" or 
"substance." In the last part of it, it is in the "complex idea." 

In this transition statement Locke has thus combined his first and second general 
definitions of knowledge. Taking the "subject" or "substance" as a complex idea, 
this transition statement can be brought under the first general definition of knowl- 
edge as consisting in the agreement or disagreement of ideas. But, then, it shares 
too its "useless" and "trifling" character. It is precisely of the same kind as the 
proposition, "gold is malleable," cited above as an illustration of "trifling knowledge." 
On the other hand, if the subject or substance here means a "reality beyond," which 
is represented or described by the ideas, then it is essentially the same as the fourth 
kind of agreement and falls under Locke's second general definition of knowledge. 

Passing now to the second statement of knowledge, as consisting in the agree- 
ment or disagreement of ideas with "real existence," let us note that it agrees with the 
statement of modern logic which defines knowledge as "the act which refers an ideal 
content (recognized as such) to a reality beyond the act."" "Gold is soluble," as an 
expression of knowledge, does not now mean the mere reference of the idea, soluble, 
to the idea, gold. That would be "trifling knowledge." Here it means the reference 

8 Cf. Spinoza, Ethics, Part I, Prop. XXVIII. lo Ibid., sec. 6. The italics are mine. 

9 Essay, Book IV, chap. 1, sec. 7. n Beadley, Principles of Logic, p. 10. 



A. W, Moore 



of the entire content, "gold soluble," etc., to "real existence," to "a reality beyond." 
"Our knowledge, therefore, is real only so far as there is conformity between our 
ideas and the reality of things.'"^ It is true, Locke's ideal content does not have 
the unity and solidarity which it has in Mr. Bradley's conception. Locke's ideal con- 
tent is an aggregation, but, in so far as it is taken altogether as the meaning and 
referred away to a reality beyond itself for its subject, it appears to be in essential 
agreement with Mr. Bradley's statement. 

A few points should be noted at the outset of a consideration of this second 
definition of knowledge. First, whereas, in the first definition, the materials of knowl- 
edge were the given ideas, here they are a system of given ideas, on the one hand, and of 
given existences on the other. They are given in separation ; the problem is to efPect 
a unity. Second, reality is identified wholly with the side of existence. That is, the 
real is entirely and unqualifiedly opposed to the ideal — to meaning. Third, reality 
as existence is taken as a completed and fixed whole. Movement, development, is 
all on the side of the ideas — of meaning. Finally, meaning means merely repre- 
sentation, either as a copy or as an algebraic symbol. These are the assumptions 
which underlie Locke's second definition of knowledge and which are responsible for 
his subsequent difficulties. It is needless to follow all the tacks of the course which 
Locke steers through these difficulties. It will be sufficient for our purpose to restate 
what seem to be the fundamental dilemmas and their significance from the standpoint 
of this discussion. 

The first difficulty, or rather the first form of the difficulty, which Locke con- 
tinually encounters, is the very ancient and obvious, but very persistent and still very 
pertinent, one, of how, if meaning and existence are given apart, the former gets its 
reference to the latter. Locke's first attempt to deal with this difficulty, as most 
attempts before and since, virtually amounts in the end to saying that, while they are 
given apart, they are also- given in reference. Waiving for the present the paradox 
in this state of affairs, with the reference as well as the separation given, the problem 
of "trifling propositions," on the one hand, and error, on the other, must forthwith be 
faced. And here it usually happens that in making room for doubt and error the 
separation is emphasized so much that the problem of reference and connection again 
becomes acute. The dilemma is a reference given, hence trifling, or a reference which 
can never be verified, hence uncertain. In the language of modern logic, "thought 
appears either tautologous or false." 

Locke's only solution of the case is an appeal to the Deity or to " nature." 

Herein therefore is founded the reality of our knowledge concerning substances ; that all 
our complex ideas of them must be such and such only as are made up of such simple ones as 

have been discovered to coexist in nature Whatever simple ideas have been found to 

coexist in any substance, these we may with confidence join together again ; for whatever have 
once had an union in nature may be united again.'^ 

u Essay, Book IV, chap. 4, sec. 3. 13 Ibid., Book II, chap. 4, sec. 12. Italics mine. 



Existence, Meaning, and Reality 



But after this very simple statement of tlie ground of the reference of the idea 
as meaning to existence as reality, Locke at once finds himself on the other horn. If 
the meaning and existence, the idea and reality, are really "found together," if the 
reference is given along with the separation, how should there ever be any doubt, and 
where is there any room for error ? How can there be any disagreement ? Moreover, 
what meaning can ' ' agreement " have but mere repetition ? And even repetition has no 
significance where there is nothing else. In other words, Locke finds here that he 
has simply exchanged his "trifling," "tautologous," "analytic," knowledge, consisting 
of "the reference of ideas to each other in the mind," for one equally trifling, con- 
sisting of a given or "found" reference of ideas to an existential reality. Thus Locke's 
difl&culty, all the way through, is not to find certainty merely ; this he has with a ven- 
geance, in his trifiing propositions. The problem is to find a place for uncertainty 
and error. There must, of course, on the other hand, be a way out of this uncer- 
tainty and error. As a whole, the problem is to reach a theory of knowledge that 
will square with both the certainty and uncertainty, the truth and error, the struggle 
and satisfaction, so palpably present in experience. The difficulty is in reaching a 
statement of one that does not exclude the other. 

The persistence of this difficulty is apparent in Locke's further attempt to leave 
a place for doubt and struggle, by an effort to rescue existence and meaning from 
this pre-established harmony. Locke's procedure at this point again seems very 
naive; and yet, if Locke could ask just how far we have advanced beyond it, it 
might turn out that our patronizing attitude toward his account has less founda- 
tion than we could wish. Locke's way of making room for doubt, effort, and error is 
as follows: while the idea and the reality are thus found together, when they are 
found, yet the finding, after all, involves searching. " It is by trying alone that I 
can certainly know what other qualities coexist with those of my complex idea, e. g,, 
whether that yellow, heavy, fusible body I call gold be malleable or no."" This 
searching, "trying," is carried on in the investigation of substances "which have 
most to do with the affairs of life," by "the further observation of the ^senses." 
Now, during this searching there is suspense, uncertainty, and the possibility of 
error. As a general statement of the location of doubt and error, this, as is the 
case with most of Locke's general descriptions of experience, leaves very little room 
for improvement. The difficulty comes, of course, in interpreting it in terms of 
the rest of his account. 

The most immediate and glaring difficulty is that of effecting any kind of a 
reconciliation of this "trying" with the final givenness of the connection between 
meaning and reality. It is difficult to see how the searching for this connection 
between idea and reality, which finally is simply to "appear," can be anything more 
than mere suspense. How can there be any uncertainty or error if meaning and 
reality are bound to appear together? The only chance for uncertainty would be 

1* Ibid., Book IV, chap. 12, sec. 9. Italics mine. 

34 



A. W. MOOEE 



merely in regard to the duration of the waiting or "trying." There could be none in 
regard to the final outcome. Then how can any real error occur? In what is it finally 
to consist ? Locke's answer is, virtually, that we know as a matter of experience that 
this searching, trying stage is not a mere empty waiting, nor gazing into empty space, 
but that it is filled with suggestions, guesses, with certain hypothetical connections of 
ideas and reality which finally, on what ground doth not yet appear, are either rejected 
as false or accepted as partial revelations, as instalments of the entire fact. 

This, of course, still further surrenders the ultimate givenness of the connection 
between idea and reality, and brings with it a train of fresh difficulties. First, whence 
come these suggestions, these hypotheses ? If Locke dealt with this question explicitly 
and in this form, he would have answered, of course: "From the continued operation of 
the senses." And this would again have thrown him upon the other point of the funda- 
mental dilemma of his whole position, viz., the possibility of ever getting rid of the 
accompanying uncertainty when once it is admitted. For if the senses can and do 
make doubtful and false connections, how is "the further operation of the senses" to 
help matters? Or, conversely, if "the further operations of the senses" do somehow 
make a true connection, why should not the earlier do so? What is the difference 
between the operation of the senses when they reveal a doubtful or false connection 
and when they give the true one ? 

The answer of most epistemology since Kant, and indeed the virtual answer 
Locke himself makes to this question, is, in its first and most general form, that 
it is the difference between the partial and the completed experience. To be sure, 
we are told in the same breath that a complete completeness can never be reached by 
human experience; for there is no limit to "the appearances of reality in sensation" and 
to the consequent reference of ideal constructions to reality. Now, if we are to think 
of truth in general as consisting in this stream of reference of ideas to reality, what is 
to break up this stream into specific truths? That is, what is to decide when we have 
reached a truth ? The answer to this is that truth, in the particular case, is marked 
by the appearance of a sense of "harmony," of "satisfaction," or by the appearance 
of a greater degree of "definition" or "determination" of the idea. But what right 
have we to any "sense of harmony" and "satisfaction" at any particular time, if the 
awful gap between our meanings and ultimate reality still yawns ? How can we find 
any "resting" place? Reality, surely, does not give out. And if this suggests 
that not reality, but we, give out, and have to "rest," then shall we say that the 
point at which we have to stop for breath is where we reach a particular truth, a 
"relatively" complete and determined experience? And error — what shall it be? 
A failure to get all the breath we need? "Error is truth, it is partial truth that 
is false only because partial and left incomplete?"'^ To be sure, we are told further 
that error is not mere incompleteness; else it would not diflPer from truth.'" It is a 

15 Beadlet, Appearance and Reality, p. 192. i^g passage in the last chapter of Appearance and Eeality, 

16 As showing just how much difiEerence between truth p. 541 : "Every finite truth or fact to some extent must be 
and error is left from this standpoint, there is an interest- unreal and false, and it is impossible in the end certainly to 

35 



10 Existence, Meaning, and Reality 

meaning which "collides with reality," a meaning which reality "rejects," "repulses," 
"repudiates," etc." 

But what is the sign of this "collision," "rejection," "repudiation," etc.? The 
first answer is that it is a disagreement, a collision among the ideas themselves.^* But 
does not this come near to begging the point ? To say that the collision of the ideas 
with each other is due to a collision with reality, and that we know they have collided 
with reality because they disagree with each other, does not seem to put us very far 
forward. However, in another connection, we get a very pertinent and illuminating 
answer. "Where experience, inward or outward, clashes with our views, where there 
arises thus disorder, confusion, and pain, we may speak of illusion. It is the course 
of events in collision with the set of ideas." '* To be sure, Mr. Bradley in this passage is 
defining illusion, not error. Indeed, the quotation is taken from the passage in which 
the distinction between error and illusion is drawn ; but to the writer this distinction, 
as Mr. Bradley states it, seems to belong to the " without-a-difference " species. How 
much of a difference there is may be gathered from a comparison of the following with 
the above quotation: "It [error] is, in other words, the collision of a mere idea with 
reality."^" And this, which follows shortly after the passage first quoted above: 
"Therefore, we must have error present always, and this presence entails some 
illusion." 

Now, the "disorder, confusion, and pain" here appealed to are evidently not of a 
peculiar sort arising from the mere failure of our meanings to copy an external reality. 
They must be the "disorder, confusion, and pain" of any and every sort that arise in 
"the conduct of life." And if these are the signs that reality rejects our proffered 
means — the signs of error — their disappearance and the reinstatement of order, 
control, and satisfaction, in the conduct of life, must, notwithstanding the formal 
repudiations" of the "practical" criterion, be the signs that reality accepts our suit — 
the signs of truth. Thus, while for both Locke and Mr. Bradley the formal standard for 
truth and error is given as the agreement and disagreement of meaning with a world 
of completed reality beyond, the real criterion is found in the relation of these mean- 
ings to the order and disorder, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction, of concrete living. 

The teleological character of this relation between meaning and reality is still 
further deepened as we note that order and disorder, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, 
presuppose some desire, interest, aim. Apart from such an already defined direction 
of action, order and confusion can have no meaning. And by the time thus much is 
admitted, one begins to wonder whether these harmonies and confusions in the conduct 
of life be not something more than mere arbitrary signs of truth and error. 

know, of any, how false it may be. We cannot know this, hood which anything possessed But any system of 

because the unknown extends inimitably, and all abstrac- this kind seems, most assuredly, by its essence impossible.''^ 

tion is precarious and at the mercy of what is not ob- Italics mine. 

served. If our knowledge were a system the case would " 76id., chap. xvi. i» Ibid., p. 100. 

then undoubtedly be altered. With regard to everything 

we should then know the place assigned to it by the whole, " /6td., P- 549. aojftjd., p. 188. 

and we could measure the exact degree of truth and false- 21 Cf. Beadley, Principles of Logic, pp. lS-21 and 531. 



A. W. MOOBE 11 



And when we further seek for some details of the way in which this "disorder, 
confusion, and pain" is produced through the rejection of our meanings by reality, 
one meets with very little encouragement. We are told that "the idea col- 
lides with reality;" but little is vouchsafed concerning the nature of the idea and of 
this reality that will show how such a collision takes place and why it should be 
confusing and painful. To be sure, confusion and pain are implied in the ordinary 
connotation of "collision," but collision in the ordinary sense means more than "the 
collision of a mere idea with a reality beyond." In the first place, it is difficult to see 
how a "mere idea," as simply an intended copy or symbol of reality, can "collide" 
with that reality or anything else. And the difficulty grows when it is recalled that 
this reality which the idea is trying to reflect is itself a completed and static afPair. 
"Nothing perfect, nothing g^enMwe?^ real, can move."^^ Why should there be any 
"collision" between even the false symbol and the reality which is not moving? If 
it be said that, while the reality does not move, we do, and so run against it, aside 
from the ever -recurring puzzle of the inclusion of motion even as appearance in a 
static absolute, one must ask: Why and how do we move? And what connection is 
there between our movement and these ideas which are partial copies of a static reality ? 
In what way does this idea of a motionless reality produce or influence action? 
Doubtless it would be answered that our activity is due to the imperfection of the idea. 
If the copy were perfect, if it fully agreed with the reality, no activity would be 
needed. Activity is due to the imperfection of our knowledge. Aside from the want 
of any modus operandi in such statements, we are aware of this imperfection of 
meaning only through the "disorder, confusion, and pain of experience," and, as 
stated above, this disorder, confusion, and pain presuppose activity already going on in 
some more or less specific direction. In other words, this disagreement between 
meaning and reality which is somehow to be the stimulus to movement is known only 
through the very activity which it is supposed to stimulate. 

In Mr. Royce's account one reads: 

There is no purely external criterion of truth. You cannot merely look from without upon 
an ideal construction and say whether or no it corresponds to its object. Every finite idea has 
to be judged by its own specific purpose. Ideas are like tools. They are there for an end. 
They are true, as the tools are good, precisely by reason of their adjustment to this end. To 
ask me which of two ideas is the more nearly true is like asking me which of two tools is the 
better tool. The question is a sensible one if the purpose in the mind is specific, but not 
otherwise.^^ 

This sounds like the opening of a new chapter in epistemology. Here very little 
room is promised for the conceptions of a completed immovable reality, or of the 
merely representative character of meaning. Here the idea is a " tool,^'' and is to 
have its value defined with reference to the "specific use" to which it is put. But 
when one reads again that the idea's "specific purpose" is, after all, not to relieve 

22 Appearance and Reality, p. 500. Italics mine. Of. 23 The World and the Individual, p. 308. 

also BosANQUET, Logic, Vol. I, p. 259. 



12 Existence, Meaning, and Keality 

the "disorder, confusion, and pain" of everyday life, but is merely to "corre- 
spond," photographically or algebraically,^* to an object ; and when one further finds 
that this object is fixed eternally in the Absolute, and that this correspondence in 
human experience must be "partial and fragmentary," one is carried back at once to 
Locke and his problems. One might begin by asking why the idea seeks this corres- 
pondence at all. To this we are told that "what the idea always aims to find in its 
object is nothing whatever but the idea's own conscious purpose or will embodied in 
some more determinate form than the idea by itself alone at this instant consciously 
possesses." ^^ Still the questions will not down. Why does the idea want a more 
determinate form? What is the standard for determination in general? And 
what decides the degree of increased determinateness it is seeking in the object? 
And if the idea fixes in advance the degree of determination, how can the object add 
more determination and still agree with the idea ? And if this degree of determina- 
tion is not fixed in advance by the idea, if there is only " a vague idea," of more 
determinateness, then what is to decide in favor of one object rather than another as 
supplying the proper degree of determination? This brings us to the problem of 
truth and error. 

In the definitions of truth and error the same difficulties pursue. "An error is 
an error about a specific object only in case the purpose imperfectly defined by the 
vague idea at the instant when the error is made is better defined, is in fact better ful- 
filled, by an object whose determinate character in some wise, although never abso- 
lutely, opposes the fragmentary eflPorts made to define them." ^^ But what is one to 
understand by "imperfectly defined" and "better defined," and what is the measure of 
"better fulfilled"? Of truth the formal definition is as follows: "It is true, this 
instant's idea, if in its own measure and on its own plan, it corresponds, even in its 
vagueness, to its own final and completely individual expression. Its expression would 
be the very life of fulfilment of purpose which this present idea already fragmentarily 
begins, as it were, to express."" But how is the idea to know whether its present 
degree of determinateness is nearer than any other to its "final and completed form" 
which is not yet known? And again, what is meant by "in its own measure" and "on 
its own plan"? How can it have a "measure" of its " own," if this "final and com- 
pletely individual" form, never reached in finite life, is the standard? And what are 
the signs of even this "fragmentary" agreement with this final and completed form? 

Moreover, if "Every finite idea is, as such, a general type of empirical and frag- 
mentary fulfilment of purpose, "^* in just what, after all, does the difference between 
truth and error, in any particular case, consist? Every idea falls short of the final 
and complete form of determination. The true idea is one which comes nearer this 
form than another. But if ihis final form never appears in this life, what is to decide 
when one idea is "nearer" than another to this "completely individual" form? 

24 The World and the Individual, pp. 304 S. i^ Ibid., p. 339. 

25 J6id., p. 327. 2676id., p. 335. 28ihid., p. 336. 



A. W. Moore 13 



Here it is interesting to turn to Mr. Royce's illustration of the particular case. 
"Do you intend to sing in tune? Then your musical ideas are false if they lead you 
to strike what are, then called false notes. "^^ Here surely there is no reference to the 
absolute idea or absolute object. Here the final degree of determination is just that 
of the concrete desire. Here it is not the idea's purpose merely to correspond "in a 
fragmentary way " with an absolute object eternally fixed in the absolute consciousness. 
It is here the idea's business to help construct an action that shall get rid of the " dis- 
order, confusion, and pain " of singing out of tune. And if we revert to the first pas- 
sage quoted in which it is stated that every idea "has to be judged by its own specific 
purpose," we read that "ideas are like tools; they are there for an end." Here, too, 
surely, the "specific purpose" and "end" of the idea is not a "fragmentary corres- 
pondence " with " its own final and completely individual " form ; unless, indeed, we 
are ready to say that "its own final and completely individual" form is simply the 
form that brings the relief from this present pain and confusion of singing out of 
tune. And if we say this, then the distinction between finite and Absolute truth and 
reality would seem to disappear. 

And this suggests that, notwithstanding Mr. Royce's most telling criticism of 
Mr. Bradley's divorce of thought and reality, one can but question whether this 
appeal to a "final," "completed," and "fulfilled" purpose does not, after all, leave us 
in the same boat with Mr. Bradley. If it is the very essence of thought, of the idea, to 
embody purpose, and if "The real as such is the complete embodiment in individual form 
and final fulfilment of the internal meaning [the purpose] of finite ideas," ^^ and if " To 
be, in the final sense, means to be just such a life, complete, present to experience, and 
conclusive of the search for perfection which every finite idea in its own measure 
undertakes whenever it seeks for any object,"" how can there be any place for thought 
"as such" in the ultimate reality? How can a purpose "fulfilled" and "completed" 
remain as a purpose? Is not this continual existence of " a fulfilled purpose" a para- 
dox? And are we not then face to face with Mr. Bradley's reality in which "thought 
as such " has no place ? 

In general, then, the fundamental difficulty for both Locke and present episte- 
mology appears to consist in a discrepancy between the conception of the nature of 
knowledge and reality in general and the accepted criteria in the particular instance. 
There is no organic connection between the satisfaction and dissatisfaction, tl^e har- 
mony and disorder, used as a standard of truth and error in the particular case and the 
general function of knowledge as reporting or algebraically symbolizing a completed 
and unchangeable reality lying beyond the process of knowledge. 

Now, in such case the discrepancy may be charged to either side or both. It is 
the thesis of this paper that the seat of the difficulty here is in the general conception 
of knowledge and reality, not in the standard accepted for the particular instance, and 
that the problem of logic at present is to bring the general conception of knowledge 

29r7ic WorU and the Individual, pp. 307, 308. Italics mine. ao/Jid., p. 339. Brackets mine. ^^ Ibid., p. 311. 



14 Existence, Meaning, and Kbality 

and reality into agreement with these criteria of "order" and "confusion" of satisfac- 
tion and dissatisfaction, upon which we fall back in the concrete case. This demands 
a much further analysis of "the concrete case" than psychology and logic have yet 
made. Thus far the conceptions of reality as a complete immovable system, and of 
meaning as merely representative, and as given "loosed from reality," involved in the 
theories of the general nature and relations of knowledge and reality, have so obscured 
the situation in the concrete case that the necessity for further analysis of the latter 
has not been felt. "Disorder, confusion, and pain" have been accepted as merely 
arbitrary signs, that our meanings are not accepted by reality. The present problem 
of logic is to work out just this connection between our meanings and the harmony 
and confusion, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of concrete experience. 

To sum up thus far, Locke, as most epistemology since, starts with meaning given 
apart from reality, the problem being to get them together. But it is found that, with 
the separation thus given, the connection must be given also. Then comes the difloiculty 
of finding any place for efPort, doubt, and error. On the other hand, when this connec- 
tion is described as not given, but achieved through effort, it turns out that the con- 
nection can be made only through achieving the separation as well. For the separa- 
tion that is achieved cannot be a complete separation. In an achieved separation the 
separated members are held in leash. It is Hegel's separation together — synthesis 
through analysis. We have found also that another phase of this same difficulty has 
been the attempt to confine movement, development, to the side of meaning only. And 
here the problem has been to see how the moving, shifting, active ideas can reflect a 
completed, immovable reality. Here, too, it may be remarked that Locke's system of 
ready-made, unchangeable ideas — direct offprints from the face of reality — seem to 
possess a decided advantage in such a representation over the " ideal constructions " 
of present logic, Locke, of course, does not keep consistently to these given, 
simple ideas for his knowledge of the real world. But the fact that he feels the need 
of them, when he is trying to bring meaning and reality together, is a point in 
favor of the consistency of Locke's conception of knowledge with his conception of 
the nature of ultimate reality. The internal difficulties of a representational episte- 
mology certainly have not diminished since it has been forced by modern psychology to 
exchange the static for the dynamic idea. It would seem that the root of the central 
difficulty in present logic might be stated as the failure thus far to work out the impli- 
cations of the thoroughly teleological and functional idea which it has accepted from 
modern psychology.'^ The reconstructive implications of the discussion thus far would 
sum themselves in the following propositions : (1) that reality can be identified with 
neither meaning as such nor existence as such ; (2) that meaning is not given in sepa- 
ration from existence regarded as reality ; (3) that the distinction of meaning and 
existence is one falling inside reality ; (4) that meaning does not merely copy, sym- 

32 Cf. ScHiLLEB, "Personal Idealism," Axioms as Pos- 
tulates, sees. 48, 49. Cf. also " The Functional versus the 
Eepresentational Theory of Knowledge in Locke's Essay," 

40 



A. W. Moore 15 



bolize, or report reality, but helps to constitute it ; (5) that, as constituted by the 
meaning and existence, reality is not an immovable and completed system, but essen- 
tially dynamic and developmental. 

In attempting a more positive statement of the relation between existence, mean- 
ing, and reality to which the difficulties encountered by both Locke and current 
epistemology point, it is to be said that such a statement here can be only a very 
general and schematic one. As a point of departure, let us take what was given 
above as one of the ways of stating the central difficulty and problem. The difficulty 
is that there appears no organic connection between ideas — meanings regarded as 
copies or symbols of reality conceived as a complete, fixed existence, and the harmony 
and disorder, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction, of everyday life which are accepted 
as the working criteria of truth and error in particular cases. What has the reflec- 
tion of this fixed existence to do with the influence of ideas on our successes and 
failures? If we are told that our failures are due to "the collision of our ideas with 
reality," then we must ask for details. Just how does collision of our ideas with this 
existence beyond affect us? What are the links in the connection? Or, is this 
"collision with reality" after all but a name for our failures? The problem is, then, 
to discover some point of contact of ideas with the harmony and disorder, the satisfac- 
tion and pain, in the particular case, and to see whether this involves the representa- 
tion of a complete and immovable reality. 

As already remarked, psychology has been at work for some time on the first part 
of this problem — especially since it has felt the influence of the conceptions of biologi- 
cal evolution. And, as also remarked, it is the opposition between the accepted results 
of this work of psychology and old conceptions of knowledge and reality still retained 
that is responsible for the strained relations in the epistemological household. From 
his work thus far on this problem of the relation of ideas to " the disorder, confusion 
and pain" of life, the psychologist tells us that, following the method suggested by 
evolution, we get a great deal of introductory light on the question by noting the con- 
ditions under which ideas develop.^' He points out, first, that activity in which ideas 
— meanings — are absent is in the relatively mechanical form of habit. By habit he 
means a co-ordination of activities in which the action at any given moment seems to be 
an adequate stimulus to further activity. In other words, a habit is a co-ordination of 
activities that can be wielded as a unit of activity in a larger whole. In such a nega- 
tive statement of the conditions of ideas the positive side is implied. As this perfect 
continuity of stimulation, present in the habit form of activity, is marked by the 
absence of ideas, so we find ideas appearing at the point of interruption of this conti- 

33Here,of course, we are warned that the existence and way of stating what appears to the writer to be at the 

meaning of the. idea are two quite different matters. The bottom of the present confusion between psychology and 

distinction goes without saying, but it is implied in the logic, and what is back of the growing conviction that our 

standpoint from which this paper is written that it is the epistemology needs to be psychologized and our psychology 

connection rather than the distinction between these two — e. g., the doctrine of parallelism — epistemologized. Cf. 

phases that needs attention nowadays. The attempt to Pbofbssge Dewey's article on "Psychology as Philosophic 

separate the members of this distinction and farm them Method," ilfiTid, Vol. XI, O. S., No. 42, 
out to different disciplines for separate treatment is one 



16 Existence, Meaning, and Reality 

unity in habit. And here, at the very outset, we reach again the center of the whole 
problem, viz., the relation of this appearance of ideas to the interruption of habit. 
Locke and all his successors virtually agree that the ideas do appear at this point. 
The question is: What is the significance and the manner of their appearance at this 
juncture? If it is their business to mirror a reality beyond this process of activity, 
there appears no particular reason why they should not perform that function as well 
in some other relation ; for example, as an activity merely parallel and independent of 
habit.'* In other words, is the "disorder, confusion, and pain" involved in this breach 
of continuity a mere arbitrary sign of "the collision" of some "mere idea" with "a 
reality beyond" or is it out of a collision, within reality, that the idea springs? 
From the former standpoint the query constantly arises: Whence and why the idea 
in the first place? And how and why the "collision?" Does reality impress or stimu- 
late in some way a false idea in order to get up a collision with itself ? And this is all 
aside from the diflBculty already suggested as to how an immovable reality can produce 
anything, even a false idea, to say nothing of a "collision." 

In attempting to trace in a very general way the connection between ideas and 
this interruption in the continuity of habit, we need to start with some account of this 
interruption itself. For if we conceive this interruption as coming from without, e. g., 
as arising from a collision of habit — not ideas in this case — with an immovable 
reality, the entire web of Locke's difficulties settles about us at once. Stripped of 
metaphor, what is the meaning of this "collision"? Just how does habit run against 
this inscrutable and immovable reality ? Moreover, if the collision is to be remedied, 
it must be in this case by habit "backing out" and reconstructing itself. No conces- 
sions can be expected from reality. And if the idea is somehow to be the instrument 
of this reconstruction, how can it do so by merely "reflecting" the static reality? At 
any rate, two kinds of ideas would appear to be needed, one to "reflect" the static 
reality, and another, more flexible and dynamic, to help reorganize habit. 

It would seem, then, that habit must be regarded as somehow developing its own 
interruptions. And, after all, this would not seem to be such a difficult conception. 
It is scarcely more than the commonplace notion, the philosophical significance of 
which Hegel perhaps first pointed out, that activity is conceived as constantly produ- 
cing new conditions of its further ongoing ; that in activity there must be a constant 
reorganization of the results of the activity back into the process. This is, of course, 
equivalent to saying that, in the last analysis, activity cannot be stated in terms of 
mere habit. It implies that activity in any final sense must include both a mechanical 
and a reconstructing function. As habit constitutes the mechanical, the conserving, 
materializing function, so the idea is the radical reconstructing function in activity. 

3* This is, indeed, to the writer the meaning of the whole yealed by present psychology. Cf. Me. Bawbbn'3 article, 

paradoxical doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism. It is " The Functional View of the Eelation between the Physi- 

an expression of the failure to find any connection between cal and the Psychical," Philosophical Review, Vol. XI, pp. 

the idea's alleged office of reporting a static "reality be- 474-84; also Part III of Mk. Ward's Naturalism and 

yond " and its manifest dynamic relation to habit as re- Agnosticism, 



A. W. MooKE 17 



Habit and thought are thus constituent poles of experience. As such, neither can be 
defined apart from the other. Each limits the other in every particular case, but 
neither can be regarded as "the ultimate" out of which the other is absolutely evolved. 
Thus neither habit nor its interruption can be defined apart from some desire, some 
end. Walking or creeping, as a habit, must be defined with reference to some desire, 
e. g., a desire for food; but this desire is in turn a part of the process of reconstruct- 
ing a breach in the process of assimilation. While habit must thus refer to some 
desire, some end, for its definition, it is, in turn, out of the necessity of meeting new 
conditions created by its own work that new ends, new ideas, arise. ^^ 

From this very formal statement of the relation between ideas and habit it is 
apparent: (1) that ideas are here regarded, not as merely reflecting or symbolizing a 
static reality, but as doing actual work in reorganizing habit, a work that may involve 
symbolizing, but a symbolizing that is a part of an actual reconstruction; (2) the 
materials of this reconstruction are not given from a reality beyond the process. The 
material is none other than the disorganized habit itself. There is thus perfect con- 
tinuity between the material and the use to which it is to be put. With the material 
for the reorganization given from a reality beyond there can be no assurance that 
it will answer the purpose. If it does, it is only by the grace of the Deity or the 
"uniformity of nature." 

Such a conception of the logical function of habit makes possible also a consist- 
ent view of the place of sensation in knowledge. So far sensation has played a very 
equivocal r6le in epistemology. On the one hand, it is that "in which reality is 
given." It is "the point of direct contact with reality." Locke says his simple 
ideas of sensation are all true to reality. So far sensationalism. But at this point 
the rationalist observes that if we really do come into "direct contact with reality" 
in sensation, if the "simple ideas of sensation" are true to reality, and if it is 
the business of perception to "report reality," then why go on with thought? 
Why construct "complex ideas" in which we are all the while getting farther and 
farther from reality ? The fact that we do and must go on thinking and constructing 
complex ideas — continues the rationalist — shows that sensation, instead of giving us 
reality, gives us only appearances. And, beside these different views of the relation 
of sensation to reality, no very consistent view appears, in either camp, of just the 
nature and function of sensation itself. Now it is stated in almost purely physio- 
logical terms, and again it appears to almost usurp the work of thought. But, if 
we find ideas arising at the point of disintegration of habit, and if we take sensa- 
tion as the first appearance in consciousness of this breach — to use Mr. James's 
phrase, "The first thing in the way of consciousness" — it would seem to bring us 
nearer a much-needed definiteness in the conception of the logical significance of 
sensation. Here sensation, as the first shock of this interruption of habit, constitutes 
the "this," demanding interpretation — meaning. And this demand for meaning is 

35 Cf. PE0FE3S0R Dewet, " Reflez Arc Concept," Psychological Review, Vol. in. 

43 



18 Existence, Meaning, and Keality 

something more than a demand for more representation; it is a demand for recon- 
struction. 

But before going farther in this very general and dogmatic fashion, let us resort 
to Locke's favorite illustration of " the solution of gold in aqua regiay First let us 
note that the process of manipulating gold in liquids involves a circuit of visual, 
tactile-motor habits, serving some aim, e. g., that of cleaning the gold. Now, the 
rupture of such a circuit may come either as a visual sensation, in the disappearance 
of the gold from sight, or as a tactile-motor sensation, in the failure to touch the gold 
on reaching for it. And here again, however " involuntary " this breach may be, it is 
to be noted that it must come as a break in, and therefore entirely in terms of, 
the activities already going on.^^ If the interruption be due to "a collision with 
reality," it must be a reality in the form of the visual-tactile-motor processes already 
involved. How could there be a "collision" with any other reality? The coming to 
consciousness of the visual-tactile-motor processes means that what has been a circle 
of mutually stimulating activities is now broken up and is demanding reconstruction. 
And the first shock of this "break" is felt as the visual or the tactile-motor sen- 
sation — the "this" demanding interpretation and reconstruction. 

Now, if we regard the "this," i. e., this mass of visual -tactile-motor habit material 
thrown up into consciousness as the "existence" which the ideas are to mean, 
we have, at any rate, an "existence" not far "beyond," nor one to be merely copied 
by the ideas, but an existence which constitutes the very material of the ideas. It is, 
to be sure, a very active existence ; but then ideas, according to present psychology, 
are very dynamic affairs. Besides, we have already seen that the difl&culty all along 
has been to find an agreement between these very active ideas and an inert, static exist- 
ence. Such a dynamic existence woiild also seem promising in the effort to overcome 
the too great "looseness" hitherto necessarily insisted upon between the existence and 
the ideas. "Necessarily," because it has been only through such a "loosing" from 
its static existence that the idea could gain freedom and flexibility enough to be of 
service in "the conduct of life" — though, to be sure, this freedom becomes a serious 
c(bstacle to its reunion with existence. 

Passing now to the function of meaning, it might appear that with "existence" 
made so dynamic as above, the active ideas as the embodiment of meaning might now 
be regarded as the mere "symbols" or "representatives" of existence. This, indeed, 
would seem to be more nearly possible now that the discrepancy between an inert 
existence and its active representatives is removed. But if this were the sole function 
of the ideal construction, it is diflScult to see how it would help matters. Indeed, it 
would seem to make matters worse, since all it could do would be to bring the disinte- 
gration of habit into consciousness. If the only business of thought were to go on 
reporting this disintegration of habit, consciousness would soon be reduced to a vast 
pile of psychical scrap-iron. 

36 Cf. Baldwin, Mental Development-Methods and Processes, 2d ed., p. 256. 

44 



A. W. Moore 19 



It has just been said, if mere reporting or symbolizing existence were "the sole 
function of meaning," etc., this implies that representation, symbolization, etc., is a 
part of the process of meaning. When the breach in the visual-tactile-motor 
co-ordination, as above sketched, comes, the first step in the process of reconstruction is 
to define and locate the interruption. This involves a symbolizing, a "reflecting" if 
you please, of the activities concerned. But, once more, even this first process of 
reflection is not a mere reflection. It is a reflection in vs/^hich the work of reconstruc- 
tion has already begun. For when this interruption passes beyond the stage of the 
mere "shock and inarticulate presence" of sensation, into ideas, into meaning, the 
very fact that the old co-ordination expressed in our illustration, in "gold insoluble" 
is reported as possibly broken, involves the beginning of the reconstruction expressed 
in "gold soluble." Unless experience is to fall into absolute chaos, into a state of 
mere negation, one co-ordination can be disintegrated only through the beginning of 
its own reconstruction." With absolutely no element of reconstruction present, con- 
sciousness would lapse into the mere " shock " of sensation. Meaning, then, in its 
very beginning, stands for an actual work of reconstruction, not for a mere reflection 
of the materials to be reconstructed. 

With existence interpreted as the material to be reconstructed, and meaning as 
the process of reconstruction, the question of their relation should have, perhaps, a 
little special notice. First, it is apparent that the connection here required is of a 
very different sort from that demanded between a static existence and its representative. 
Here the relationship is not one of "coexistence" and "correspondence point for 
point," but is that of the interpenetration of material and process. Nor are existence 
and meaning here "given apart," the problem being to work them into this relation- 
ship. As the interrupted habit is "material" in the process of reconstruction on Z^/, 
so there are no ideas, no empty meanings, wandering about unattached to any 
existence. As there is no mere process of thought, grinding away, as an empty mill 
waiting for grist, so there is no pile of habit fragments lying about as material waiting 
to be put into the hopper. Here existence and meaning, the material and the process 
of reconstruction, develop together as the two complementary, inseparable, and consti- 
tutive functions of one inclusive process. In short, the problem of connection with 
which Locke struggled disappears, simply because there is no such separation of 
meaning from existence as that with which he started. Meaning here is not "given 
loosed from existence." From the very outset of the experience, beginning in the 
visual-tactile-motor sensation interpreted as the "disappearance of gold," existence, as 
constituted by the activities involved in the habit matrix, is the very Sioff and content 
of the idea, of the meaning; and the latter is simply this material in process of 
reconstruction. 

Locke's unconscious tribute to this organic relation between existence and meaning 

37 This is, of course, " the positive character of negation " upon which present logic insists. Cf. Bosanqcet, Logic, 
Book I, chap, yii, and Bbadles, Principles of Logic, chap. iii. 

45 



20 Existence, Meaning, and Reality 

appears, as has already been noted, in his answering the inquiry after the validity of 
his simple ideas with an account of their oirgin ; a procedure for which Locke has been 
much condemned, but which, after all, if he could have freed it from the conception 
of the completed character of existence and of the merely representing function of the 
idea, would have made impossible the extreme separation of the problems of origin and 
validity so strenuously insisted upon by most of the neo-Kantian epistemology. 

With this very general interpretation of meaning, existence, and reality, and their 
relation to each other, the question which has been urged so insistently throughout 
the discussion, upon other views, should be noticed — the question, namely, of a 
standard of truth and error, including an interpretation of doubt and certainty. If 
meaning is the reconstructive function of activity, what is to determine the limits of 
this reconstruction in any particular case? When is the reconstruction "true" ? And 
if meaning is in such close connection with the material of habit, if the latter is indeed 
the very Stoff of the meaning, why should there ever be any uncertainty and error ? 

First, let us recall that the problem of reconstruction is not one of reconstruction 
of habit at large. It is the reconstruction of a certain set of activities already engaged 
in a specific work, e. g., manipulating gold in liquids. Here in a very general form 
our criterion is already in sight. If the disintegration of the co-ordination of eye and 
hand, activities involved in manipulating gold in liquids, constitutes the demand for 
reconstruction, the restoration of a co-ordination between the eye and hand, with 
reference to handling gold in liquids, must constitute the criterion for the completion, 
the "truth," of the reconstruction. The conclusion, "gold-soluble-in-agtta-re^ta," 
means the establishment of a new habit of manipulating gold in liquids. Here "agree- 
ment," harmony, between meaning and existence does not mean that one copies the 
other; on the contrary, it means that the one responds to the demand of the other for 
change, for reconstruction. The only way, then, in which the idea can he false to "the 
reality as it appears in sensation" is through its failure — not to copy, but to change 
it, for the only reality appearing in sensation is just the disintegrated mass of habit 
demanding reorganization. 

If the " truth" of the meaning consists in its being a reconstruction of habit with 
reference to a certain demand, what shall be said of uncertainty and error? We have 
already seen that meaning, as a reconstruction, is not a mere reflection of work already 
done, but is a new work, a new creation achieved. It is the former interpretation, 
indeed, as has been repeatedly pointed out, that makes it so difficult to account for 
error and to prevent knowledge from being "trifling." But if thought means an 
actually new work to be done, manifestly at the outset there must be uncertainty, not 
of reaching any outcome — this would land us in the paralysis of absolute skepticism 
— but uncertainty concerning the exact character of the outcome. That is, uncertainty 
means that thought, instead of being a symbol of an already developed reality, is itself 
the instrument of development. It means that life is not given, but must be won. 
On the other hand, the "perfect certainty" for which Locke longed would mean the 



A. W. MooEE 21 



complete reduction of experience to a mechanism, in which there would be no place 
because no demand for thought, indeed for consciousness of any kind. 

And actual error — failure, what is it to mean? Locke's answer is: "The dis- 
agreement of ideas with reality ; " Mr. Bradley's : " The collision of a mere idea with 
reality" — the "rejection," "repudiation" of meaning by reality. And the signs of this 
"disagreement," "collision," and "rejection" are the "disorder, confusion, and pain" of 
everyday life. We have already seen how difficult it is to find any connection here 
between the sign and the thing signified. But if we can regard the " reality" in this 
case as the mass of disorganized habit demanding reconstruction, and if we can take 
this "disagreement," "collision," and "rejection" to mean that, the work of recon- 
struction being an actual work to be done and not being performed at a single stroke, 
it may therefore at a given stage be incomplete with reference to what is wanted,^^ it 
would seem we should have reached a basis for the conception of error which would 
make possible some connection between it and its sign. For surely it is not difficult 
to see the connection between the incompleted reconstruction of these disorganized 
activities and "disorder, confusion, and pain" as its signs. And at this point it might 
be said that in a certain sense this "disorder, confusion, and pain" is due as much to 
a lack of "collision" as to the collision of ideas with reality. That is to say, what is 
needed at this point is a further working over of the habit material, in a sense more 
"collision" of habit and ideas. And here, too, we may say of error, as of doubt, that 
it is not failure in a final sense, it is simply unfinished work. 

Here an important objection will be urged to this statement of the meaning of 
truth and error. It will be said that this conception of the criterion runs into the 
infinite " regressus." Thus the specific interest, e. g., manipulating gold in liquids, 
with reference to which the habit, its interruption, and the reconstruction itself are 
defined, is itself an ideal construction and must in turn be referred to other interests 
and habits for its definition, and so on without end. It is, indeed, just this everlast- 
ing " othering " of thought that is its bane for all representational views of knowl- 
edge. But let us note first that this "regressus" objection derives its force from the 
assumption that the thought-habit form of experience is transitory; and that it must, 
therefore, be referred to something "beyond" for a beginning and an end. With 
this assumption in mind, the reference of a particular work of thought to some 
interest involving previous thought must appear to be in the elephant-tortoise class. 
But freed from this assumption, this "regressus" need mean only that we conceive 
experience as a process the results of which at any given point constitute the material 
for and stimulus to further activity and that we accept experience thus conceived as our 
"ultimate reality." It means merely the commonplace enough fact that interest at 
any given moment is the outgrowth of previous experience, and cannot be defined 

38"Truthanderrorareessentiallyrelative to the inter- wanders about a town Just so far as he has no 

est of the subject To put a question seriously is to want definite aim he cannot go astray."— Stout, essay on"Er- 

to know the answer. A person cannot be right or wrong ror," Personalldealism, p. 10; c/. also same essay, sec. yi, 
without reference to some interest or purpose. A man 



22 Existence, Meaning, and Reality 

apart from it, and also that it is tlie further development of previous experience — a 
development, not toward an ultimate, fixed goal, taken as a standard, but a develop- 
ment in the sense that the present is built out of the past. Stated from the negative 
side, it means that the "disorder, confusion, and pain," the relief of which is accepted as 
the sign of the "truth" of the reconstruction, is not mere "disorder, confusion, and 
pain" at large, but is always of a certain kind, and that this kind is determined with 
reference to an interest which is the outgrowth of previous experience. Thus the 
disappearance of gold in aqua regia produces "disorder, confusion, and pain" only to 
one already manipulating gold in liquid. On the other hand, the fact that the old 
process of manipulating gold in liquid falls into disorder and confusion means that it 
reaches no abiding form ; that in the very process of its own ongoing it develops new 
activities which must be reorganized into it. Thus again does experience, as consti- 
tuted by the interacting functions of thought and habit, appear as the process of 
eternally rebuilding itself out of the products of its own activity. 

Another and perhaps more fundamental way of putting the objection just noted 
is that this statement of the criterion of truth and error, in terms of a concrete interest, 
does not do justice to the universality of meaning. If the work of thought be "true" 
when it relieves the disorder, confusion, and pain of the situation here and now, 
whence its universality ? Whence the conviction of the value of the work done here 
and now for other situations? "What is the ground of that "probability" to which 
Locke finally appeals for "practical certainty," but for which he could offer no 
explanation but the will of the Deity or the uniformity of nature ? First, it may be 
remarked that all theories of knowledge, from Locke on, holding to an immovable 
reality and the representational function of thought, have certainly had difficulties 
enough with this phase of the problem, and whenever they have gone beyond some 
form of the pre-established harmony view of universality, it appears they have done 
so at the cost of either the complete and immovable character of reality, or the 
merely representative character of thought, or both. We have, of course, for a long 
time been quite certain that the universal must somehow be present in the particular. 
Just how this occurs is the problem. We have stood bravely, too, for the "concrete" 
as opposed to the "formal" universal ; yet when one looks for statements of the 
method of this "concrete universal," they turn out to be either little more than formal 
descriptions of the necessity for it, or statements of it which are hard to reconcile with 
a static reality and a merely "reporting" knowledge. All accounts of the concrete 
universal, from Hegel on, which have attempted to do more than point out the demand 
for it, have based it on the conception of growth, development, involving purpose. 
One or two passages from current literature will suffice for examples : 

In this class of objects (mechanical devices, e. g., a watch) we may fearlessly say that it is 
the purpose which is the essence, and that generic judgment rests on the knowledge of essence. 
In all other classes of objects such a view has degrees of precariousness, and can only be applied 
to the purpose as immanent, and therefore as not determinate, and as uncertain in its bound- 

48 



A. W. Moore 



aries. Nevertheless, when we predicate in the organic world " growth," " development," " self- 
preservation," " irritability," we are really referring mechanical processes to an idea of life — 
an idea of self -relation, of " inner" and " outer," which is a higher result, though it is a result, 
of their purely mechanical nature.^* 

We have already seen the part which purpose plays in Mr, Royce's account of 
meaning. The following passages may be added: 

Universal judgments arise in the realm where experience and idea have already fused into 
one whole: and this is precisely the realm of internal meanings. Here one constructs and 
observes the consequences of one's construction. But the construction is at once an experience 
of fact and an idea; an expression of s. purpose and an observation of what happens. Upon the 
basis of such ideal constructions one makes universal judgments.^" 

Again: 

But what then is the test of the truthful correspondence of an idea to its object, if 
object and idea can differ so widely? The only answer is in terms of purpose. The idea is true 
if it possesses the sort of correspondence to its object that the idea itself wants to possess.*' 

The significance of these statements of meaning in terms of "purpose" is that it 
promises an intrinsic basis for universality and unity. Meaning as purpose at once 
becomes determinative of its own "object." The object it constructs, in realizing 
itself, must be universally valid for ihat purpose. Material that cannot serve the pur- 
pose cannot become its " object." The object is simply the expression of the purpose. 
Here too we have a basis for a unity of "the many in the one" other than the unity of 
mere identity. We have already seen the difficulty and failure in the attempt to 
construct a unity out of entities either physical or psychical, or a composite of both. 
But the idea as purpose arises out of the demand for a reconstruction of disintegrated 
habit. As "an embodiment of purpose" it is precisely the business of the idea to 
reorganize, to unify this manifold of disintegrated habit. As existences, there is no 
possible way for this manifold to become one. They can be unified only in purpose. 

Now it would seem that these statements of meaning in terms of purpose should 
shut out at once all static conceptions of reality and all conceptions of meaning as 
merely representative ; for it would seem to be of the very essence of a purpose or a 
plan to be reconstructive. But the force of these implications appears broken when 
we discover that the "purpose" which the idea embodies is, after all, not that of reor- 
ganizing the disintegrated habit to the relief of the "disorder, confusion, and pain" 
of the present situation, but is that of corresponding in a "partial" and "fragmentary" 
manner with "its own final and complete form" eternally fixed in the Absolute. 

Moreover, such an interpretation of the purpose embodied in the idea seems to 
offer little basis for that intrinsic and " concrete universality " for which the very 
appeal to purpose is made. It is very difficult to see what basis this "partial and 
fragmentary correspondence " with the absolute idea can have other than some sort of 

39 BosANQUET, Logic, Vol. I, p. 237. Italics and paren- " The World and the Individual, Vol, I, p. 289, 

thesis mine, « /bid., p. 306. Italics mine. 



24 Existence, Meaning, and Reality 

a pre-established harmony. And as for the presence of the universal in the particu- 
lar — the concrete universal — how can the universal, conceived as an "eternal," 
"completed," and fixed "whole of content," be present in a purpose which is confess- 
edly but a mere shred of the whole ? On the other hand, as before observed, if in the 
universal the particular — the finite, is "completely fulfilled," how can there be left any 
particular in the universal? The complete fulfilment of the particular finite purpose 
is its annihilation. And with the disappearance of these finite purposes, have we any- 
thing left for our universal but Spinoza's abstract identity ? 

Now if, instead of regarding the idea as " having " a purpose, we take it as con- 
stituting the defined purpose or plan of action, involving the construction of an object, 
through which some " disorder, confusion, and pain is" to be relieved; and if we further 
recall that there is no other material for this construction than just the mass of disin- 
tegrated habit out of which the purpose itself, under the stimulus of the disorder and 
pain of the disintegration have sprung, it seems we have a basis for the universality 
at once intrinsic and concrete. Here the "universal in the particular" means that 
the particular purpose is the outgrowth of previous experience and has no other 
material for its realization than the results of this preceding activity ; and also it 
means that this work of reconstruction must in turn become the stimulus to and 
material for further experience. The "particular in the universal" here means that 
the purpose is not mere reconstruction at large, but is made in response to a specific 
demand. The unity here is not the static unity of whole and part, but the unity of 
growth. The necessity and universality of the reconstruction here made in response 
to a specific need is grounded in the fact that the experience here and now, with 
gold in liquids, is the inevitable outgrowth of past activity, and that it is also the 
only basis of any future experience with gold in liquids.*^ 

Hence the conviction that the future is as secure as the present and past. It is, 
indeed, a curious notion that the future alone is " contingent," while the past is fixed 
and abiding ; that " what's done is done." For in every day's work in history and 
science, in every new problem solved, in every new advance in any direction, it is 
precisely the past that is being reconstructed. In our illustration it is the old con- 
struction, "gold-insoluble," that is changed. The past is still in the making. The 
past, as well as the future, is "contingent." On the other hand, there can be no 
future experience which is not built on this past and present reconstruction. What- 
ever future comes must be continuous with the present and past. The world may 
come to an end; it cannot be turned into absolute chaos. This is, of course, only 
the Kantian platitude that the future must be "intelligible." 

In this evolutional character of experience we find the ground for that " practical 
certainty " of the connection between meaning and reality which Locke, to the last, 
could refer only to the Deity or to " the uniformity of nature." With experience con- 
ceived as a process of reconstructing itself out of the materials of its own production, 

«2 Cf. Baldwik, op. cit, pp. 323 ff. 



A. W. Moore 25 



there must be continuity. But when we say, " The future must be continuous with 
the past and present," we, of course, cannot mean that the present construction will 
be maintained in that future in its present form. It too must be disintegrated and 
serve as " material " for the reconstruction of further experience. If just when and 
where and how it is to serve were determined, we should have, indeed, that " perfect 
certainty " of which Locke dreamed, but we should have too an Absolute in which 
there would be no future ; in which the last reconstruction had been made, the last 
problem solved, the last battle fought — a "complete," "perfect," Absolute, if you 
will, but an Absolute which, if we are to construe out of our present psychology, 
would be merely a vast system of habit, an Absolute in which there would be no 
place, because no demand, for either thought or feeling. Probability, confidence, 
faith, hope, all mean that experience is a re-construction. Uncertainty, doubt, the 
problem, the need of reflection, of courage, of work, mean that experience is a 
Te-construction. 

In this attempt at some very general reconstructive statements no special para- 
graph has been devoted to the conception of ultimate reality. It has been manifest 
throughout that reality is here conceived as just this process of experience of which 
"existence" and "meaning" have been described as constitutive functions. Such a 
reality is, of course, not of " the-same-yesterday-today-and-forever " type. It is not a 
reality which gathers all truth into one, completed, eternal whole, and in which " all 
purposes are completed and fulfilled." It is not a reality in which all thought and 
effort disappear in a vast becalmed sea of everlasting immediacy. It is a reality of 
activity, of development, whose own very ongoing is ever creating a demand for new 
purposings, new thought, new effort; a reality that promises — not "eternal rest," but 
Eternal Life. 



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